Generic Company Place Holder CCS64

One of the most successful home computer systems of all time was
the Commodore 64. While the Apple II broadly targeted businesses,
homes, and schools, the Commodore 64 aimed itself perfectly at home
users. Its graphics and sound capacity were well in advance of any
other computer of the 8-bit dawn. I used my Apple IIc for term
papers and databases, but I hogged my roommate's Commodore 64 for
games. Although remnant C64 hardware is hard to come by, and most
vintage 1985 floppy disks have long since gone to silicon heaven,
the Commodore 64 lives on in emulation and borderline-legal disk
images.

CCS64 is a well-supported and very complete emulator, with a few
minor quirks--many of which stem from its very desire to be the
perfect emulator. It makes few concessions to the idea that it's
running under Windows. While you use the menu bar to bring up
options and settings, those screens are shown in the emulator,
using C64 style navigation functionality--there are no radio
buttons and checkboxes here, bucko! I experienced considerable
frustration getting the joystick emulation to work, until I
discovered that I need to specify both the key mapping and set the
input for the game port to use that mapping. The help documentation
is very sparse. Fortunately, there's a well-populated forum on hand
to answer many questions. CCS64 is aimed fairly heavily at
long-time Commodore users; there's little hand-holding for those
not intimately acquainted with the platform and its
conventions.

Once you've got it working, though... well, it's a Commodore 64.
CCS64 runs exactly like a standard model, including speed and
timing (since many programs relied on specific timing, including
hardware response speeds, to function.) It can, thus, take a while
to boot from a floppy (sadly, there's no karunk-runk grinding noise
emulator). It can be a bit shocking to see just how primitive the
graphics and sounds were. Those of you who haven't looked at older
systems since they were cutting edge might suffer some cognitive
dissonance as you try to reconcile your fuzzy memories with the
harsh-edged realities.

To get any software to actually run on the CCS64 emulator, you
will need to scrounge disk images from the net. These are not hard
to find. To be perfectly clear, there is no such thing as
"abandonware"--not legally. Either a copyright holder has given
permission, or they haven't. Many of the easily located disk images
are, amusingly, images of pirated disks, from back in the old days
when "crackers" signed their work with revised startup screens
crediting themselves.

If you're willing to put in a bit of effort to configure CCS64,
and you want to re-experience the technology of the 1980s (or just
see what Dad's talking about when he talks about how Halo III isn't
anywhere near as cool as Impossible Mission), download it and check it out.

--Ian Harac

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